Taiwan March 3018 Gro Harlem Brundtland
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Taiwan March 3018 Gro Harlem Brundtland "Sustainable Development Goals, a thirty year story of international collaboration" It is great to be back here today, remembering the wonderful events in 2014, when the first Tang Prizes were awarded. I was deeply grateful to be receiving this great honour. One of the positive developments was the Tang Prize Grants that we could use for each one of us to further our key causes. The Gro Brundtland Week was one of these initiatives; inspired by my conviction that to promote women and their role in society is a crucial element of a sustainable world of prosperity, peace and security. The world has fortunately step by step moved forward, over my lifetime:i to realize that human rights also need to be women's rights, and that empowerment of women is a prerequisite for sustainable development. I am grateful for the excellent efforts, also by the National Cheng Kung University and the quality of the process of assembling young women scientists who wish to contribute to the global knowledge base for pursuing Sustainable Development. The title of my speech today is about the critical need we all are facing, for our world and our more than 190 different countries, to be working together for our shared interests to safeguard our common future. Sustainable Development, the concept we coined back in 1987, has nearly 30 years later, in 2015, led to a crucial global agreement, The Sustainable Development Goals. It has been a long journey, but it has successfully brought the world together behind key common goals. It is also an important part of my own life story, and how I became personally involved, engaged and convinced, already as a young environment minister of Norway, in pursuing a pattern of development that could benefit all, protect our planet and promote peace. 1 2015 became a year of historic breakthroughs, as our leaders finally agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals in New York in September, and then on the Climate Agreement, in Paris in December! 2015 fulfilled the hopes of so many, and became the breakthrough year for a critical agenda for our world and our future. I had become greatly inspired at the UN in New York, having spoken at a session lead by the French President Hollande at the historic meeting when world leaders signed up to the new Global Sustainable Development Goals. It was really uplifting to witness the passion and determination only weeks before Paris, shown by the leader of the host country, France! I am convinced, however, that we would ,not have seen the success of Paris, without the hard work for years towards the Sustainable Development Goals, an initiative taken by the UN Secretary General after the breakdown in Copenhagen in 2009. This again inspired the results of Rio plus twenty in 2012. It all led to a broad global effort to agree on sustainable development goals, for rich and poor countries alike. For the first time, a development agenda now fully integrates the environment and applies to all our countries, not just to the developing world. So does the Paris agreement. Sustainable energy for all, empowerment of women, addressing inequality and good governance, also within countries, are certainly concerns and obligations that also rich countries need to take seriously! After a hard fought struggle, the goals did include as goal number 13, a crucial, strong commitment by all countries seriously to address climate change! That is what was demonstrated and confirmed in Paris. It had taken a quarter century of negotiations to reach this stage of common responsibilities, based on national commitments and agreed principles and rules, common goals and aspirations, to be reporting and to be counted, and to increase the level of ambitions at regular intervals. 2 The long journey of follow-up to the work of our commission, in 1987, has a broad range of efforts by so many countries, institutions, individuals and leaders behind it. I will share with you some critical parts of that story. In 2015 we also celebrated the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. When the United Nations was established in 1945, I was six years old. The world was emerging from the horrors of the Second World War. In my country- Norway- we were reasserting and re-establishing democracy after five long years of Nazi occupation. By the time I was ten, my family was living in New York and I was proud and keenly aware that a fellow Norwegian, Trygve Lie, had become the United Nations' first Secretary-General. Little did I know then that I would have a long-time involvement with the United Nations. Over the past 35 years, I have had the honour and privilege to serve on various United Nations committees, as well as heading up one of its flagship agencies, The World Health Organization. However, today, more than ever, the relevance of the United Nations is also challenged. There have been profound shifts of power and wealth in the world since it was established. Of the 193 member states of the United 'Nations today, nearly three quarters were not members in 1945. Its purpose now is greater than just trying to maintain peace and security among nations; it is also to help solve the economic, social, humanitarian and environmental problems facing us. Sustainable Development My first role serving the UN was in 1983 when the UN Secretary-General invited me to establish and chair the World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Commission considered the interwoven challenges of environmental degradation, poverty and population growth. 3 The Commission, best known for developing the broad political concept of sustainable development, published its report Our Common Future in April 1987. The Commission's groundbreaking and radical recommendations led to the Earth Summit- the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The whole process of our work was from the outset geared towards a broad international learning process, reaching out to all relevant parties, not only governments and the NGO community, but to Universities and thin thanks, research bodies, and not least to the whole business community. We knew we would be in this together, and that the future depended on unparalleled cooperation to succeed. In Rio 1992 impressive results were already possible to achieve: The Climate Convention, The Biodiversity Convention, and of course: Agenda 21, describing the development needs of the coming century. 5 years later we had the Kyoto protocol on Climate, leading to seemingly endless rounds of negotiations, up to the historic meeting in Copenhagen, in 2009. There it became clear that new ways of collaboration were of the essence, after the serious breakdown between different groups of countries that dominated that important summit. However, at least one common goal was agreed: The world must not see a higher temperature rise than two degrees Celsius, an essential outcome, after all. Parallel to the climate focus, over the years, the UN system continued working on several critical issues for our common future: The Social Summit in Copenhagen In Cairo, the conference on Population and family planning, In Beijing, the Conference on Women's rights, Just to mention three of the critical ones- 4 At the Millennium, our world leaders were able to agree on a number of crucial issues, and launched Millennium Development Goals. This was a key effort to follow up Agenda 21, but it turned out it was impossible to take into account the serious climate and environment dimensions we were all facing. Also, the idea that a development program should address all countries, not just the developing world, was still unthinkable! We have come a long way since the publication of the report nearly 30 years ago. Indeed, great strides have been fought since the launch of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. We have dramatically reduced the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. More people have access to safe drinking water. Fewer children are dying in infancy, fewer mothers die due to giving birth to new generations. However, even a quick glance will show that while some in the world are experiencing unprecedented levels of prosperity, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Environmental degradation continues, and the effects of climate change have begun to threaten the world's most vulnerable populations and ecosystems. This is why the new Sustainable Development Goals will be crucial in continuing the momentum to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030 and to address a number of critical economic, social and environmental issues, including climate change. Over the last 28 years, since the launch of Our Common Future, I have often been asked to confirm that so little is being done, that the challenges are too large to tackle, basically been confronted with the issue of giving up. Yes, it has taken too much time; yes the pace of change has been devastatingly slow. However, I have always tried to remain focused on the urgent goals, and counting even small gains in wisdom and commitment. 5 Today, I believe it is time to also turn it all around. We should celebrate while reminding people that looked at historically, it is maybe not so surprising that close to 200 countries, with widely varying stages of development, culture and history, have needed some time to overcome such large differences in background and perspective. When I was asked to chair the Wodd Cornmissim1 on Enviro1uncnt and Dcve opment, in 1983, I was leader of the opposition, and had my hands more than full with my responsibilities on the Norwegian political scene.